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Some Nice Buttons

Smile

Granted, being Chinese you probably don’t have a hell of a lot to smile about, but there are plenty of other people in the world who have faced adversity, and still manage a grin from time to time.

Take Cambodians, for example: their entire country was at the mercy of the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge for several years, during which time half the population were brutally tortured and murdered. Yet Cambodians smile all the time. The Vietnamese, too: their country was invaded by China as a reprisal for the Vietnamese getting rid of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. Over one hundred thousand civilians were killed in just a month, and the scorched earth policy of the Red Army had lasting effects, yet today one often sees Vietnamese people with smiles on their faces. Even the Japanese manage to smile from time to time, despite being treated so badly by their younger brothers here in China. The Japanese did everything they could to help China develop a proper civilisation, even going so far as to arrest and punish all the serious criminals in Nanjing, but did the Chinese ever thank them? No, quite the opposite. And yet, the Japanese still smile. That takes real honour.

So, Chinese People, stop looking like you’ve been sucking on a lemon. Put a smile on your dial and turn that frown upside down.

It won’t actually kill you. Probably.

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 30, 2009 at 17:44 and is filed under China.
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17 Responses to “Smile”

Slap2ticklesaid

It’s my experience here in Shandong that Chinese people do smile, they smile on many occasions such as losing face, lying and when you ask them a question they don’t know the answer to or in some other kind of embarrassing situation, it’s worth noting this fact especially when you get engaged in some kind of negotiation with the Chinese.

Neddysaid

Good point, S2T! Cannot claim enough direct experience myself, but this is what I am told quite often.

Oh, and there’ll be even fewer genuine smiles now! An international incident in the making, in fact: India is contesting China’s claim to 5000 years of history, and invention of everything including daylight:

“There is the widespread perception that science began in Greece. We want to correct this, and publicise advances made in India as long as 5,000 years ago.
…
A new exhibition at the centre suggests that the study of atomic theory, mathematics, biology and cosmic evolution were all born in the subcontinent — when Britons were living in huts made of wattle and daub.”

A more pertinent line of reasoning would be not how long one has been playing the game, but how high one’s score is. For instance, no one can claim that the U.S.A. is an ‘ancient civilisation’, but they had people on the moon when the Chinese, Indians, and Egyptians had people living in mud huts.

“5,000 years and still developing” is not really much of a sales pitch.

justrecentlysaid

Methinks that you’ve arrived at the crossroads today. You can criticize China either for being backward, or for polluting the environment. Living in mud huts is an economically sustainable, albeit unpleasant, way of life.

Slap2ticklesaid

Or is it concrete huts with mud in them, sometimes I wonder how far economic saving needs to go when you have a washing machine that conveniently washes the floor with the waste water, a sink that drains directly through a hole in the wall and 5 stories below (with the odd person collecting it for a shower later)and trying to save on the water bill by trying to fool the meter and dripping the tap water into containers. It is logical that the Chinese, the people who hoard everything, I mean come on, have you seen their balconies, would like to hoard all the inventions for themselves like a little kid fighting over candy, it seems to be a new trend for the developing countries, though this is just my opinion, due to the fact that they have nothing else to claim as it’s already been taken up by the developed countries, after all isn’t history down to interpretation of a few chicken scratchings in caves and on stones?

justrecentlysaid

Neddysaid

I think you all take this too seriously, guys, getting bogged down with facts and failing to see the Truth.
I was thinking more along the lines of a clash of two 5000 year civilisations, locked in a heroic pissing contest over their respective claims of scientific superiority. Why, those Indians say they invented zero… what a shit-pile of hurt feelings that will cause all by itself!

Neddysaid

JR, a war over Aruchanal Pradesh? Then what is all that talk about a peaceful rise? Are you telling us they mean a soufflé, not China? Heh, an Indian soufflé with Chinese characteristics: India is peaceful while China rises… or else!

justrecentlysaid

Hang on, Neddy. Aruchanal Pradesh was, is, and will always be Greater Ti-…, umm, Chinese! If there is a nuclear war over Aruchanal Pradesh, it is already India’s fault! Besides, it would be Arunachal Pradesh, not Aruchanal Pradesh. But it isn’t either, because it was cruelly carved away from the arms of the loving motherland by the imperialists. WHEN WILL BE THE LANGUISHING OF OUR BELOVED PROVINCE BE OVER? WHEN WILL BE ITS yi-jiu-jiu-qi?!
*SOB*

RecoveredSinoholicsaid

The Chinese all suffer from horror vacui (fear of empty space). Every Chinese desk is piled a mile high with useless crap. Every Chinese refrigerator is stuffed with 3 week old chicken wings and other assorted science projects. Modernistic simplicity is completely beyond their range of understanding. And of course, an empty floor must be covered with gobs of spittle in varying degrees of congealment.

Add to the endless list of Celestial Inventions: hacky sack! Ooh, look, we have a Song Dynasty painting of a bunch of soft flabby scholars standing in a circle with a ball in the air! We invented soccer in the 12th century! Not at all just kicking a ball around like the old Roman legions did! No sir, and the suckers, I mean intelligent China-loving folks at FIFA recognize our Han primacy! All hail the Celestial Hua race, inventors of the very air you breathe!

Sojournersaid

If you were a princeling, you would have a share in that country, sojourner. But you are too frustrated to be a princeling. Therefore, all you can do is to act as their dog, and to bark at foreigners. Sorry – it isn’t your country.